Dalton Drama Club always shooting for the gold

DALTON DISTRICT -- Shooting for the top, the drama club at Dalton High School continued its tradition of high marks at the annual Wayne County High School Play Festival with a rating of superior.

"I try to instill in them the pride of continuing the tradition to get superiors, but ... we're going to do our best," art instructor and Drama Club adviser Robin Evans-DelCiappo said. "Why go through all this trouble, learning and doing this, if you're not going to shoot for the gold?"

Fewer than 40 students participated in the one-act play competition with "If Walls Could Talk," a play that had students acting as the walls of the set in addition to the traditional roles in the play.

During the annual festival Jan. 29, held at Norwayne High School, University of Akron professor and judge Aubrey Caldwell said it was easy to see what set Dalton's performance apart.

"I've worked professional for a while, about 12-13 years," Caldwell said. "From what I've seen, these students had a depth of characterization that you usually don't see on the high school level."

This was Caldwell's first time judging the Wayne County High School Play Festival, but she was impressed with the caliber of acting she saw.

"There were moments when I lost myself wondering, 'Am I watching high school students, or am I watching college students?'" Caldwell said. "You could see how young they were ... but everything about them was superior."

Evans-DelCiappo said she began play auditions in November. In addition to the festival, the students held a community performance the night before.

After the community performance, the cast was part of an open forum with the audience to receive constructive criticism on their show.

Evans-DelCiappo said the play festival is always important to participate in because of the competition atmosphere.

"The judges are looking at you, they're looking at these certain aspects of your performance, and that's what you try to key upon when you're in your rehearsals," she said. "It just gives them a different feeling after they've performed, knowing that they're judged to whereas they're just doing a performance for an audience. They have to learn their P's and Q's. ... It just helps them through that acting process."

Caldwell and the other judges, community theater actresses Tina Benson and Karen Wood, selected two students from Dalton for the All-County awards. No other school had two students chosen for the awards.

Caldwell said she chose students Meredith Beatty and Ben Torgler because the supporting cast made the main characters stand out.

"The reason we chose him (Ben Torgler) is because this particular actor explored all ranges of emotion in such a small period of time," Caldwell said. "We watched him go on a journey. ... As a whole, it was because of the ensemble work that ... they elevated the main characters."

Every year, Evans-DelCiappo has the students participate in a gift exchange over winter break that reflects the play's theme. This year, since the play had many Jewish characters in it, students exchanged gifts dealing with Hanukkah or other Jewish traditions.

That closeness that the cast shared during the rehearsals transitioned to the festival's performance.

"They were a neat group of kids," Caldwell said. "You could see the sense of camaraderie and family. ... They were a group that had such a special connection with each other."

Evans-DelCiappo said she always loves to see the students take ownership of the production they're in.

"That's one of my philosophies is that the show becomes theirs. It's not mine. I don't do anything. I'm just here, I'm guiding, it's yours now," Evans-DelCiappo said. "They realize when they take over, and I realize and I step back, and it's so cool. That's my favorite thing in the whole wide world is watching that happen, watching them take ownership."

After winning the superior rating for "If Walls Could Talk," the group performed the play one last time later that week for the student body of Dalton High School.

Contact Abby Armbruster at 330-287-1632 or email her at aarmbruster@the-daily-record.com. Follow her on Twitter @abbyarmbruster.